Recent meetings have seen us investigate a lovely new venue, the surreally named Camel and Artichoke on Lower Marsh. We took advantage of a 10% discount at iKnit, you donated your hard-earned cash to charity to win some glorious Soak, and we drank quite a bit of pear cider. Thanks to you all, and congrats to the lucky winners.

At EV was fought over the last of the humus, cooed over new tiny and rather dribbly newborn S&B Londoners, and welcomed many newbies.

The weekend saw some of us wandering the depths of Waterloo's Leake Street tunnel for a bit of yarnstorming or “gritting” too. Those mysterious Knit the City girls were in attendance amongst the knitting masses and we hear tell their woolly Web of Woe was disturbingly fabulous.

Stitch and Book Launch at lovely Loop

Details of the next meeting:

Join us within yarn-throwing distance of the lovely Loop for a fabulously knitty book launch for Claire Montgomerie's Easy Kids Knits. There'll be cake, wine, and raffle goodies at Loop and 10% off of the book.

Then wander from yarn shop to pub to get your knit on in the usual S&B London manner at The New Rose pub.

Join us at an exclusive meeting at Innocent’s ‘Fruit Towers’ this week for the launch of this year’s Big Knit campaign. They’ll have hat patterns for us, as well as lots of needles, yarn and pom-poms.

Show off your stitching to the Innocent employees, who’ll tell us about what they’ll be up to in the coming year, and a few ladies from Age Concern. AND we have been assured there'll be lots of smoothies to hand for everyone (as well as tea and cake)!

Macmillan are lovely folks. They’ve been improving the lives of cancer fighters since way back in 1911 and this year they have teamed up with The Knitter magazine to ask for your help.

A Nationwide campaign called the Macmillan Comfort Blanket, in association with the World’s Biggest Coffee Morning on 25th September and supported by Rowan, has been launched.

They’re asking folks to knit 20cm x 20cm squares to make up Comfort Blankets. The blankets will consist of 40 squares (8 long and 5 wide). Each will be handed over to someone who is living with cancer to make them cosy while they fight their battle.

Fabulous designers (Amanda Crawford, Debbie Bliss, Jane Crowfoot, Jean Moss, and Martin Storey)from all over the knitting planet are joining in with some jaw-dropping square patterns which you can download on Macmillan’s website. Or you can make something even more stitch-worthy of your own.

Coffee Mornings will be taking place all over the UK on the 25th of September. But as we’re evening owls we’ll be planning a Macmillan Comfort Blanket meeting to bring your squares to and sew up blankets at the end of September.

Until then you can send your Comfort Blankets to:

The Knitter Macmillan Comfort Blanket, Future Publishing Ltd, 30 Monmouth Street, Bath, BA1 2BW or drop it off with them at The Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexander Palace.

Summer holiday time is upon us, and while the thought of knitting on the beach might not appeal, the prospect of a little bit of stash enhancement can be rather tempting. But where and how to find yarn shops when you’re not on home ground? We have a few suggestions that might just help you out.

Firstly, take a look at the fabulous knitmap.com – an online catalogue of yarn shops across the world, including reviews from other knitters. They even have an iPhone application for those who can’t be without their electronic devices even when on holiday! If you manage to find a shop that isn’t on their list, the site also allows you to add new locations.

Another useful resource is good old Ravelry. Have you noticed their Local Yarn Shop Directory? No? Well, just head along to the ‘yarn’ tab and get searching. Don’t forget to tell us about all of your exotic purchases when you get back!

Blankets, Bears and Bootees is based around three essential baby knits, with lots of fantastic examples of each, which are designed to cater for knitters of all abilities. Each of the designs in the book would make a great baby gift in its own right, but many of the patterns are designed to co-ordinate with each other to form unbearably cute sets.One of our favourites is the big bird bean bag with matching (and slightly less imposing) small bird toy.

If you want to be in with a chance of winning a free copy of this book, follow the simple steps below.

Answer the following question.

Which of the babies below is the grumpiest little knitwear model (clicky links to see)?

Your full name, email address, and contact phone number (if you have one)

The deadline for the competition is Wednesday 12th August at 10am. The 4 winners will be picked (by the most baby-faced selecter we can find) from all correct entries, and notified by email or phone within 48 hours.

Competition rules: 1. One entry per person. 2. Competition ends 12th August 2009 at 10am. 4. Winners will be drawn from all correct answers, and notified within 48 hours via email or phone. 5. If winners don’t reply with addresses within two weeks of closing date then new winners will be chosen. 5. No cash alternatives. 6. Book will be posted to winners.

Stitch and Smoothie Moves

Tiny hats for bottles of Innocent smoothies are becoming a bit of a tradition. You S&B Londoners have been knitting them annually since S&B first began and have come up with some tiny loveliness.

The hats are sold atop smoothie bottles and do more than just them look pretty. Each one raises money for Age Concern, helping support older people when they need it most.

This year we've decided to go all out and try to churn out as many tiny hats as possible. Fancy knitting a few?

You can find three fabulous tiny hat pattern on the Innocent site. Start off simple, start off a little bit crazy, or go entirely wild with your idea.

The Stitchettes will collect up the Innocent Hats and hand them over for the deadline of Friday 16th October. You can bring them along to any meeting. We'll feature our faves on our blog and in the newsletter after the deadline.

If you can't make it along to a meeting then fear not. You can send them into Innocent via snail mail too.

Just pop your hats in an envelope along with your name, address and number of hats knitted, and send them by the 16th of October to this address:

That’s all for now folks. Don’t forget to knit your squares and dinky hats for charity, and get those book comp entries in asap! You can also casually stalk us on twitter, disagree (1) on Ravelry, and cast your peepers on our blog for a bit of S&B London when you're not at a meeting.

S&B London promise not to share your email address with anyone, not even if they ask us nicely and offer us sweet, sweet cake or cashmere. S&B London is a non- profit group and we do all this for no payment in our spare time, so please be patient if we make mistakes.